"I'm sorry; I don't exactly know what's going on." His back is to me but I can tell from his voice that he's been drinking. The sweet stench of whiskey and cigarettes cloys the air and every breath I take smells of him, that thing I was trained to kill. Hi words come more slowly now but he still refuses to look at me.
"I sit here in the dark day after day and night after un-ending night and I find myself thinking about all of the things I shouldn't. Not just you, and not just what we could have been to each other but weren't." His shoulders inside the leather jacket look thinner than they used to and I wonder how long it's been since I'd last come to see him. It wasn't really my fault. The council kept me busy pretty much all of the time and there always seemed to be some crises that couldn't be fixed without my help. He turned suddenly and pale blue eyes peered at me from the darkness. The soft sound of an intook breath and the cherry of his cigarette glows a brighter red for an instant before the barely controlled cloud of smoke streams its way from where his mouth should be.
"It's all your fault, I suspect. Always has been, really. All of you. Holding me down and chaining me up in the dark so no one else would see the sort of bloke you consort with. Afraid your new friends will think less of you if they see me nipping at your heels like the little dog I've become. The toy. The pet vampire on the invisible leash." Another intake of breath and another drawn out exhalation of the fumes that would have killed a normal man many times over by now. His jacket crinkles as his arm moves around in a sudden sweeping gesture meant to take in all of the building around us.
"Never seen it, have you pet?" one arm finds a pipe above him in the dark and he levers himself forward, swinging from one hand with his feet still on the ground.
"Seen what?" Finally I say. His eyes go distant and he leans forward, putting his face into the light.
"The magic."
"I've seen plenty of magic. Done some of it too, or have you forgotten?" He shakes his head almost ruefully as though correcting a little child and his eyes take on the faint gleam of superiority and madness I'd come to fear and respect.
"Not talkin' about all that glittery mumbo jumbo the witches taught you. Not that flashy light show, changing reality kind of hocus pocus the old man's got you so good at. I mean my kind of magic."
"Your magic?" I try to convey a tone of skepticism; I'd never seen him do any kind of magic or to show traces of any kind of power for that matter.
"My magic. The stuff that moves worlds. I thought I'd shown you already."
"I don't think so."
"Hmm, well I'll have to fix that then, won't I?"
"Is this conversation going anywhere?" I've lost part of my temper and he knows it. The gleam of superiority glints even more brightly in his shadowed eyes and the cigarette travels again to this mouth. He wants to take time to gloat to himself about his control over me. He takes in another long, slow breath and holds it for a time before letting it out again.
"Haven't decided yet. I've got to know if you're ready for what I've got to say." He's challenging me. I know it, I can feel it down to my bones. My mind whispers against his words and his challenge but my heart yells out in response and it's my heart that takes control of my mouth.
"I'm ready for anything you think you can dish out."
"Big words from such a little girl. Your mum would be proud 'a you, I expect."
"Leave her out of this." My temper slips a little further and his eyes flash in pleasure.
"The magic."
"The magic." I repeat his words hoping to lead him along on his chosen topic.
"The magic is what moves people and things around them. The ancient power that men hold over women and women hold over men. It makes you do things, things you don't want to do. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you curl up inside yourself and climb to the highest peak shouting praises." Another long drag of the cigarette and for the first time since I've come in he smiles.
"What is it?"
"Love." He leans backward into the shadows to the sound of flesh leaving metal. I don't need to take the steps forward to know that he's gone but I do. I rush into the darkness with my arms out flung to find him, knowing I won't. Not even a cigarette butt remains to mark his presence and I leave the basement and head upstairs wondering not for the first time if I'll ever see him again and just how crazy he's finally become. Most of all, though, I wonder about the question that should be furthest from my mind on this the anniversary of her death; does he know I'm not my sister?